47. New York

I had decided that I wanted to spend my official birthday in “The Big Apple”. Little did I know it would be an adventure just getting there. Our flight to LaGuardia ended up canceling so we started looking for other options. We sat at DFW watching flights cancel or fill up for hours. I wasn’t giving up; I had reservations for lunch at Peter Luger Steakhouse and tickets to Broadway. I was going and I didn’t care how we got there. Since it didn’t look like we would be able to fly into NYC we looked at flying into Baltimore or Philadelphia and then driving to the city. We finally boarded a plane to Philadelphia at 10:45 pm, after AA took two planes out of service and I was scared the crew would time out. We landed in Philadelphia at around 3:00 am, rented a car, and Dennis drove us through the fog to New York City. We watched the sun come up as we reached the city at around 6:00 am. We went to the hotel and after some maneuvering we finally got a key to our room. I had prepaid for the room and called to let them know we would be extremely late in arriving but not to give up our room. Supposedly if you don’t arrive by 3am they give your room up anyway and they had no more rooms. Well, the young man I had spoken to was new and didn’t inform the others at the front desk that he had assigned a room to us. Thankfully we had a room and a few hours to rest and shower before our nonstop day was to begin. We drove to Peter Luger Steakhouse, found a parking spot right across the street, and enjoyed the best steak. We ordered the steak for two with Luger’s special German style potatoes as our side. The steak is served on a platter that is so hot that if your steak is not cooked enough then rub it along the side and it will cook more. Now, I love a rare steak but just out of curiosity I seared a piece just to see if they were telling us the truth. They were. The waiters sang “Happy Birthday” to me as they served us a slice of New York cheesecake complete with their homemade whipped cream, “Schlag”, and a candle. Peter Luger’s has been around for over a hundred years and the form of payment has always been and still is cash.

    After a wonderful lunch celebration we drove to Battery Park where we boarded the

Miss Gateway for our harbor cruise. Time did not allow us the luxury of getting off and exploring Lady Liberty or Ellis Island but I had done that before and was just happy to be able to relax as we cruised around the harbor. Dennis had not been to New York since before 9/11 and I wanted him to see and experience the emotions of ground zero. The memorial was in its final stages before the opening in a few weeks and most of it was blocked off but I noticed an outdoor patio bar at a hotel just across the street that would have a great view of what was behind the fencing so we acted like we knew where we were going, got on the

 elevator, entered the bar and found the door to the patio so we could see the spectacular memorial. We also walked by the FDNY Ten House station which is home to the FDNY Memorial Wall. The firemen were enlightening and even put Flat Stanley in the fire truck.

    After sitting for a few minutes, I was exhausted, we headed towards Broadway. We had tickets to see Million Dollar Quartet. It was a great show and I highly recommend it especially if you love music. The show ended and we drove to Newark airport so we could return the rental car. We were so desperate to get a car we managed to rent one that did not have a drop off place in the city or at LaGuardia which is where we were flying from so we had to take it to Newark. Not a problem except at this time of night the only way to get back to our hotel was to call a car service. Our flight home on Sunday or I should say flights, were just as interesting going home as they were going to New York. We ended up flying from LaGuardia to St. Louis along with every other standby passenger only to find out the flight from St. Louis to Dallas was cancelled. We opted for our good ole standby, Southwest Airlines and took a flight from St. Louis to Little Rock to Houston and then finally back to Dallas. We started out on Friday afternoon and had planned to travel to one state, New York, by the time we got home on Sunday evening we had been in five different states not counting Texas. It was a trip we will never forget.

Leg 16

      3 days (only 26 hours in NYC)

      5 flights

         miles

      = 1 state visited (although we actually landed in 4 states and drove to 2)
                                  3 states to go!

http://www.peterluger.com/